


rockstars

by ascience



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Borussia Dortmund, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 23:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4765724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ascience/pseuds/ascience
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marco's and Auba's drunk selves have brilliant ideas sometimes. The jury's still out on whether getting married to each other is one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rockstars

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks goes out to the people who organised the minibang, to everyone who yelled at me until I finally wrote a Pierreus fic (#real), and especially to [Tin](http://tringic.tumblr.com/post/128737198284/art-for-rockstars-by-ascience-summary-marco-and) who is an awesome artist and an amazing person! I also don't want to forget about Issa, who betaed my fic and is part of the reason any of this makes sense at all.  
> Go forth and read!

 

* * *

 

 

Marco wakes up – which, all in all, is a good way to start the day, especially considering that he might as well have died of alcohol poisoning or whatever overnight.

He tries to turn around in the sheets,  aiming for where he suspects his phone on the night table, but it doesn’t quite work out as he wants it to. His brain feels like cotton in his skull and each time Marco so much as thinks about moving, a throbbing pain shoots through his head.

Marco’s legs get tangled in the heavy sheets and when he kicks himself free, he hits someone on the other side of the huge bed.

That someone who has to be Auba makes an unhappy noise, but before Marco can investigate any further, the hangover hits him hard.

With frankly super-human strength and speed, Marco manages to stumble through the hotel room towards the door that leads to the bathroom. At least he faintly remembers _this_ fact, despite the headache and nausea.

Marco throws himself over the toilet and retches and just generally feels like Satan used his body as a doormat.

He draws his hand through his hair a couple of times, but keeps getting caught on some weird-ass diamond ring on his finger. He doesn’t remember anything about buying or owning this thing, but he’d rather focus on keeping the content of his stomach to himself right now.

It does get better with the feeling of the cold floor tiles beneath his knees. By the time Auba has rolled out of bed and has followed Marco into the bathroom, Marco’s headache has shrunk into an annoying but bearable thumping.

Auba nudges Marco with his foot, and Marco, who’s still got his head over the toilet, hopes like hell that Auba’s not secretly amused by this situation. Not that they haven’t shared a number of hangovers already, or that this particular hangover wasn’t predictable after the partying yesterday.

“You okay?” Auba asks, his voice rough from sleep.

Marco decides to answer with a drawn-out groan to portray his pain. Auba doesn’t get it and nudges Marco again and again.

“No. Ugh. Yeah, I’m fine. Feel like hell, whatever.” Marco says, making the excruciating effort to turn his head towards Auba. His head stays on his shoulders, so: so far so good.

“Maybe those last couple of shots last night were not the greatest idea after all,” Auba says, as he tiredly rubs his hand across his face. Even Auba has bags under his eyes, which is proof that they just had the best fucking party of the whole fucking off-season.

“How come you’re not as hungover as me? It’s not fair,” Marco complains and uses Auba’s arm as support to lever himself up. Marco notices that Auba is wearing an oversized t-shirt with a Batman print on it, a silly present from Marco that he never thought Auba would actually _use._

“I have the worst headache of my life, bro. I just know how to keep myself together,” Auba laughs. “I prefer not to hang my head into the toilet like you.”

“Haha. Fuck you.”

Marco flips Auba the middle finger, but smiles as he makes his way back to their bed. He still feels like roadkill and there’s a strange itchy pain on his left shoulder blade that only adds to the Las Vegas experience.

Looking around the room, there is actually surprisingly little evidence from the show yesterday. There are just some dollar bills lying around, underwear in places it shouldn’t be, empty cocktail glasses, and glitter.

Marco shuffles to get his phone from the night table (where it was, indeed, located) and snaps a couple of pics of the scenery to post on instagram later. He considers taking a selfie, but he looks like shit, so. No.

“Auba?”

“Hm?”

Auba’s voice is still coming from the bathroom so Marco responds in the same general direction.

“Quick question: Do you remember anything about what happened yesterday _after_ we accidentally bought that yacht?”

“We bought a yacht?”

Marco grins to himself, while he more or less unsuccessfully digs through the mess in their room to find fresh clothes to wear.

“Hell yeah, we bought a yacht! Well, you accidentally signed some papers that some dude gave us and then we wanted to go back and cancel it, but I’m not sure that ever happened. So what I’m getting from this is that you don’t remember either.”

“Well, we made it back here, didn’t we,” Auba says and now he actually steps out of the bathroom, a toothbrush in his hand. “And, to be honest, not remembering? That _is_ the one true sign of a good party.”

Marco is about to agree, but never gets to it – because he spots the ring.

Auba’s hand is curled around the handle of the toothbrush so Marco has an excellent view of his right ring finger and the silver band that winds around it. The gemstone sparkles in the light and – it’s not unlike the ring around Marco’s finger.

“Oh my god,” Marco says and grabs Auba’s hand, ignoring the following startled yelp.

He holds their hands next to each other and compares the rings. They look exactly the same, pretty snazzy and expensive.

“Oh god,” Marco repeats, somewhere between baffled and gleeful, “we got the same ring. We bought rings yesterday.”

Auba drops his toothbrush and wiggles the ring from his finger to take a closer look at it. Apparently he hadn’t given much of a thought about it before either.

“Did we, like, get friendship rings? Bro rings? Brings?” Auba asks, and Marco can almost imagine it in a commercial already.

_Bro rings! Brings! Brings you and your mates together!_

“Fuck, that’s awesome! We owe drunk us for this.”

Granted, the rings are a little flashy and in-your-face, but it’s not like they could wear them on the pitch anyway and in-your-face has always sort of been their aesthetic.

Auba grins and carefully slides his ring back on his finger.

“Love you, bro,” he says and presses a sloppy wet kiss on Marco’s cheek before picking up his toothbrush and going back into the bathroom.

Marco accidentally starts to be productive when he searches for the bottle of water that he knows has to be in this mess somewhere. He digs through the room and, in the process, throws the stuff he finds into the general direction of their suitcases. Some things might actually not be their own and instead belong to the room interior, but given the high cost of this hotel, theft should frankly already be included in the bill.

Marco finds a bunch of crumpled sheets of paper under his bed that have words in English or some shit on them. He buries them in a side pocket of his suitcase.

The water bottle is still nowhere to be found, and Marco still feels majorly dried out, so he groans as loudly as he can.

It gets the result Marco wants: Auba finishes up his routine in the bathroom to look after Marco.

“Urghhhhhhhh,” Marco whines,looking at Auba with puppy eyes.

“What’s going on?” Auba asks, taking off his pyjama shirt and replacing it with a tank top with comically large armholes. Nice.

Marco is temporarily distracted bythis very enjoyable view and whistles approvingly.

“Hey, that shirt really accentuates your biceps, bro. Good one.”

Auba smiles and jokingly flexes his arms to show off his muscles even more, before he takes a look around the room, which reminds Marco of what he was actually doing a second ago.

“Right. Urghhhhhhhh,” Marco groans again, “I can’t find my water. I know I had a bottle here somewhere.”

“Is that the reason you cleaned our room?”

“I was looking for the bottle, dude.”

Auba laughs.

“You could, like, order some water. Or drink from the tap, you know.”   

Marco squints and tries to come up with a good comeback, but then realises that Auba is right. Damn.

As Marco rings for room service (because he wants sparkling water rather than the flat tap stuff), he wonders what the hell he’d do without Auba.

He’d have neither water nor this _a-ma-zing_ diamond ring now, that’s for sure.

\--

On the plane back to Germany the next day, Marco fiddles with the ring since he can’t sleep and one can only watch Fight Club so many times.

He turns it in his hand and taps it on the tray table in front of him, and while he genuinely loves the ring, there’s something about it that doesn’t quite add up.

Marco isn’t sure what exactly that is, because it’s just a ring and he’s had friendship bracelets with André before, but this ring almost feels like an exciting secret between Auba and him.

When Marco swings the ring around on just the tip of his finger, he nearly drops it into a gap between their plane seats. He almost has a heart attack, and a shout escapes his mouth. Marco glances to his left, but Auba is still sleeping, drooling on his shoulder, and Marco breathes out in relief.

He wouldn’t know how to explain the loss of the ring to Auba, because that would be, like, betrayal of their broship. Brotrayal. Brotray’all!

As Marco looksat the ring one more time before sticking it back safely onto his finger, he notices a tiny engraving inside it for the first time. It’s barely there, just a couple of thin lines forming teeny tiny ant words.

The light catches on the engraved words _Pierre_ _♡_ _Marco_ , and Marco smiles widely, before he slides the ring on his finger again.

Drunk friends are best friends. That’s what the heart means, right?

\--

Back in Dortmund, the preparation for the new season starts, so Marco and Auba have less, uh, no time for parties or other shenanigans, apart from the stuff they pull during trainings anyway, although they’re not actually supposed to.

Like when they’re doing scoring exercises in their first training and Auba gives Marco a piggy-back ride before lining up to take his shot. Marco holds onto Auba with one arm around his shoulders and one hand in Auba’s hair, as Auba runs, shoots, and actually scores.

He loses balance after that though, and Marco and him topple over and roll around on the grass, while the others gather around them and cheer them one as if in a high school schoolyard fight – except it’s less of a fight and more of a horizontal hug.

Ha _ha_ , yeah, innuendos are on sale right now.

It ends when Marco manages to come out on top and sits on Auba’s stomach, catching his breath. Marco smiles down at Auba, and when Auba laughs in return, Marco can feels his muscles move underneath his legs.

“Come on, I’m gonna help you up,” Marco says, as he gets up himself and wipes his hands on his grass-stained shorts, and offers Auba his hand.

“Thanks, bro, but you don’t need to,” Auba answers, although he strangely enough makes no move to actually stand up.

Marco frowns and leaves his hand hanging in the hair. “Huh?”

“I mean,” Auba explains, smiling widely, “you uplift me every single day already – with your presence.”

“Bro!” Marco gasps. The other guys around roll their eyes, but Marco knows they secretly think it’s endearing, although he’d prefer a word like _manly_ or _awe-inspiring_.

“Bro!” Auba replies, and then he finally takes Marco’s hand.

Ilkay groans. Tuchel makes them run five extra rounds as punishment for reasons that were not entirely decipherable between his sighs and incredulous smile.

After training, Marco is more than happy to head under the shower and to spray off the dirt and sweat.

He stands in the water with closed eyes, until someone interrupts his bliss.

Mats whistles behind Marco’s back and it takes Marco a couple of seconds to realise that the whistle was more or less directed at him.

The showers have cleared out except for Mats (who always spends obscenely long, seriously, that guy has to have gills somewhere) and Marco (who has an excuse because he had those penalty rounds), even Auba’s already in the locker room again.

Marco turns around and looks at Mats who has a strangely suggestive smirk on his face.

“Nice new tat, Marco.”

Marco’s hand instinctively moves to the ink on his arm, but there’s no new tattoo there, or anywhere else on his body for that matter. He’s _pretty_ sure he’d remember getting a new one.

“New tat?”

“Don’t joke, dude, I saw it,” Mats laughs. “You had an eventful off-season, didn’t you?”

The water is turning cold, and Marco is starting to shiver, but he’s got other things than the shower on his mind now. He hits the control and turns the water off.

“What? I guess? I mean, uh, what does that have to do with anything?” Marco asks, as confused as –well, as confused as a very confused person, fuck you very much.

“You can’t tell me you had that tattoo last season already. I know you didn’t! So you wanna tell me what happened?”

“What tattoo are you talking about?”

Mats frowns, so Marco frowns back, then Mats throws his hands up in surrender.

“Uhm, whatever then,” Mats says slowly and grabs his towels and shampoo bottles. “It’s fine if you don’t wanna talk about it.”

What the hell was that? Marco can’t make sense of it, and standing in the shower naked and freezing after Mats has left the room doesn’t help either.

Marco slips across the wet tiles as he hurries to follow Mats, who is already tying his shoes. Marco instinctively searches the room for Auba, but apparently he’s left already, which is sort of mean, because he definitely promised to get dinner with Marco today.

But fuck that, Marco has another problem right now.

“Mats, where is my tattoo?”

Mats looks up from his shoes, and then around as if to check that no one’s playing a joke on him.

“You’re fucking with me, right? The tattoo on your shoulder blade?”

Holy shit. Mats is serious.

A tattoo that Marco can’t remember getting? That can only mean—the party night-slash-memory hole with Auba. Fuck. At least that explains the stinging pain on his back that morning.

Marco anxiously cranes his neck to get a look at his own back, but human anatomy is a bitch and Marco’s drunk past self is excellent at getting his ink in dead angles.

“Mats, what does my tattoo say?” Marco sounds more desperate than he wants to, but Mats only replies with unbelieving laughter.

But Marco doesn’t chime in and finally Mats gets it, as he stops laughing and his eyes widen.

“What? You’re serious?”

Marco runs his fingers through his hair and scrunches up his nose.

“ _Yes_.” he says, sharp on the s.

“You don’t know what your tattoo is? You’re fucking with me. You have to be fucking with me! Right?”

“Just. Tell me what the tattoo says. Please.”

Mats stares at Marco incredulously. His eyebrows do all kinds of weird movements that frankly don’t help Marco’s situation at all.

“Where and when did you get a tattoo that you don’t know what it says?”

“I don’t—just tell me.” Marco begs.

Mats hesitates for a second, then he shrugs and finally gives in.

“Alright, whatever,” he says, “It’s a bat, I guess. The animal. Okay?”

Oh. That doesn’t sound so bad. It could have been a slightly off drawing of a Disney character or a misattributed Steven Gerrard quote, so a bat? That’s almost nice.

“Just that? Phew, okay, thank you.” Marco says with relief and has already considerably calmed down, when Mats frowns and speaks again.

“Well, there’s also a heart around the bat.”

Uh-oh. Marco freezes, and his hand slowly wanders to his shoulder blade as if to feel what’s inked into his skin.

“Is it a big heart?” Marco asks first, because at this point, all he can do is damage control.

“Well...” Mats says thoughtfully, “what _is_ ‘big’ really? It’s gotta be big enough for the word _Aubameyang_ inside, doesn’t it?”

It takes Marco a split second to realise what Mats is implying, but then – fuck.

All blood leaves Marco’s face, which turns him even paler than usual.

“You’re not serious, right? Tell me you’re not serious!”

Mats doesn’t say anything, he only shrugs apologetically.

“Oh God,” Marco says, because _Oh God_. He has a tattoo of Auba’s name in a heart on his back and –even worse – at some point during that drunken night, he must have decided that getting that tattoo was a good idea. While Auba was there. Fuck!

“I mean. Look at it in the mirror or something if you don’t believe me,” Mats says, tying his second shoe and grabbing his bag. “But I’m still not sure how you don’t know that you got a tattoo?”

“That’s, uhm, a long story and I – oh god! What am I supposed to do now?”

Mats sighs likehe’s always the adult in this club who never gets drunk off his ass. _Right._

“I thought you are like BFFs. Best friends forever. What’s better than getting a tattoo that’s forever then?” Mats asks. “Why are you freaking out? I bet Auba would adore it.”

Marco actually stops to think about it. It’s true, a tattoo like that is pretty cool and it’s only a small step up from the friendship rings. He doesn’t even have any problem with the permanency, because hell, if Auba turns out to be an evil overlord faking their friendship, then Marco can easily get it removed.

The thing is, he doesn’t _want_ to get it removed. He really likes the symbol, even with the strange longing pull that he gets in the pit of his stomach just thinking about it.

But what if Auba doesn’t like it? What if Auba thinks it’s weird? Too much?

“What if Auba thinks it’s weird?” Marco repeats out loud to Mats.

Mats looks at Marco, laughs loudly and then leaves without another word, shaking his head.

Marco strokes across his shoulder one last time before he puts on his clothes, and closes the locker room door behind himself.

Back home, Marco takes a photo of his back in the mirror so he can get a look at the tattoo. It’s pretty artfully done without any glaring orthographic errors, and Marco breaks into an unsure smile.

He tries not to think too much about how this is a tattoo that he might also have gotten soberly.

The next day, Marco sticks the ring into his pocket and puts a plaster across the tattoo before he heads to training.

Marco thought that it would help with hiding the tattoo, but in the end it does pretty much the opposite, when Auba approaches him about it the second Marco takes his shirt off.

“Oh, did you get a new tattoo?” Auba asks curiously and slides a finger across the white plaster and down Marco’s back. Marco chokes on his own spit and the careful touch of Auba’s hand doesn’t help him catching his breath, although Marco would voluntarily score an own goal before admitting that.

Marco should have known that he can’t hide anything from Auba.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Auba asks, and Marco can really hear the slight disappointment beneath the genuine excitement. “You held my hand during my last tattoo session, I would have totally held yours!”

Marco still remembers how Auba almost crushed his hand because he held onto it so tightly. Still Auba smiled during the whole procedure, always finding Marco’s eyes again, while the tattoo needle was humming across Auba’s broad back.

The thing is, Auba _was_ probably there to hold Marco’s hand when Marco got the bat tattoo, but – due to alcohol and other regretful decisions – doesn’t remember a single bit about it. Marco’s honestly sad about that, because being there when Auba got a tattoo was like the seal of a bond.

Like blood brotherhood, but with less exchange of blood and more hygiene and more touchy-feely conversations.

Well, Marco’s never been there to witness an actual ritual of blood brotherhood, but he doubts it includes long, heart-felt hugs. Ew, thinking about blood makes Marco get all dizzy.

Marco coughs and decides to answer, “Yeah, uh, a surprise! It’s a surprise! The tattoo still has to heal so I don’t want to show you yet.”

Auba winks knowingly and Marco gets the slight suspicion that Auba might be getting something wrong here.

\--

At the moment, a lot of things are confusing to Marco, namely how to handle the tattoo, where the hell he put the yacht contract, and whether the bro rings should or do change anything about Auba’s and his relationship.

But in the end, he’s here for the team and he tries hard at saving his confusion for evening hours, so Marco’s quite excited for the Bundesliga media day that’s set up for them.

Plus, looking good in photos? Marco’s got that down pat.

They won’t play football much that day, except for some faked set-ups for pics, so Marco feels safe enough sliding the ring on his finger.

It won’t get in the way of sports today, or pose a danger since the stone’s edges could theoretically cut up someone’s skin during a tackle or something – but Marco still turns the ring around so the diamond is in his palm.

It’s less flashy that way and makes it possible for Marco to thumb the stone without making it much noticeable.

Marco closes his fingers in a relaxed fist around the ring and enters the Dortmund terrain with a swing in his step.

Someone calls for Marco from across the room, and if Marco hadn’t recognized the voice, he’d have known that it was Auba just from the words, “Hey, Robin!”

“Hey, Bruce!” Marco replies happily, then adds in a lower voice, “Or is that classified information? Should I say Batman?”

“Bro! We need to talk about what superhero to use next! Batman was last season, we need something new!”

Auba takes Marco’s hand and drags him to a corner of the room where shows him different pics on his phone and, to be honest, Marco thinks every idea is better than the last.

He’s glad that he’s got a good feeling about this season, because hopefully they’re going to have plenty of costumes to try out after goals.

“So, like, I was thinking, if I get a mask like this,” Auba explains and gestures around his face where he wants the mask to be. He says something else after that, but Marco doesn’t quite get it, because he’s looking at Auba’s hands.

There’s a strange sting in Marco’s chest when he sees that Auba isn’t wearing his ring. And that? That is pretty ridiculous considering they didn’t, like, make a pact to always wear their promise rings until they’ve made enough money to elope from their hostile Middle Age families.

Marco hadn’t worn his ring until now either, so what the fuck is this feeling of disappointment?

Auba doesn’t notice that Marco’s mood has inexplicably dropped, or at least he doesn’t comment on it, which is the sign of a true best bro. Mats, however, missed the bro memo.

The bromo.

Uh, never mind.

“Dude, Marco, you’ve been moping all day! What happened?” Mats asks as they line up for the photo call, and throws an arm around Marco’s shoulder.

“You invaded my personal bubble, that’s what happened.” Marco says and wiggles out of Mats’ arm.

“I saw Auba invading your, uhm, personal bubble earlier and I thought you seemed fine, but apparently not. Talk to me, son, what’s wrong?”

Marco gives him the bird, then he steps in front of the camera equipment and completes his photo session. He imagines he can see Auba watching him intently out of the corner of his eyes, and Marco hastily jerks his hands behind his back so that his ring can’t be seen on the photos.

When the photographer tells Marco to step away however, Auba isn’t watching anymore at all (if he had been before) and Marco thinks, _Okay, whatever,_ it’s not like he cares!

Except he maybe does, sort of, in the more-than-bro type of way that he might have accidentally slipped into during the past year.

No biggie, right? It’s all completely chill.

Marco shuffles out of the room into the direction of their locker rooms. He slides the ring from his finger, then changes his mind and sticks it on again.

The diamond still sparkles as brightly as on the first day, and it’s so hypnotic that Marco doesn’t even hear Mats sneaking up on him.

Mats’ presses his ice-cold fucking alabaster statue hand on Marco’s neck, because he’s an asshole and can’t mind his own business – although Marco has to admit that he’s almost happy about that.

“Marco, my lieutenant, my second in command, tell me what’s wrong,” Mats demands, “and tell me what your new tattoo has to do with everything.”

Mats stops when he sees Marco still eyeing the ring.

“... and what it has to do with that thing, apparently. You gotten married or something?”

Marco laughs loudly and shakes his head.

“No, it’s not... I’m not married. It’s... about Auba.”

“Who’d have guessed,” Mats says, although it definitely doesn’t sound like a question.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Uh, nothing. Just, with the tattoo, I took a wild guess.”

Marco sighs, and tells Mats the whole story, or at least what he can remember or piece together, which is not that much to be honest. Every time Marco mentions the friendship rings, Mats huffs, but when Marco stops to let Mats talk, Mats just waves for him to continue.

Marco’s really looking forward to some advice regarding what to tell Auba about the tattoo and Marco’s maybe-feelings, but Mats’ only answer is a worried frown.

“I know it sucks,” Marco says, “but it’s not that bad, right? I mean we just forgot what happened, but I don’t think we, like, killed the American President or something.”

“That’s not what I’m concerned about.” Mats hums and haws, obviously unsure about how to say what he wants to say.

So what is he concerned about? Them killing the Vice President? Marco has no time for this shit.

“Spit it out!”

“Marco, I don’t really know how to break this to you. Uhm, when you were in America—“ Mats stops and grimaces. “I think you guys _did_ get married.”

Marco laughs. Mats says it so seriously, you could almost think he’s not screwing around. What a joker.

“What? Married? That’s a good one, Mats! Pull my other leg, it has a bell on it!”

Mats purses his lips and waits. Marco doesn’t really get what the hell Mats is waiting for, but it sure as fuck better be something good.

Marco stares at Mats expectantly and Mats stares back the same way, blinking rapidly as if counting down the seconds until he combusts from the secret knowledge that he apparently has.

So _what_ , Auba and Marco had the party they had planned, they had gotten drunk, they had an alcohol blackout, signed some shit they shouldn’t have and woke up with matching diamond rings, that’s like—

The exact description of a drunk wedding.

 _Wow_ , Marco thinks, _that’s. Wow._

“Wow,” Marco repeats out loud, because it’s a pretty good word to describe what it feels like to find out that you accidentally married your best friend maybe-crush. “Wow.”

“Over-night weddings are a pretty common thing in Vegas,” Mats says and, with a tinge of red on his cheeks, hurries to add, “Or so I’ve heard.”

“Wow.”

“There might be another explanation, but since you’re not objecting, I guess you know it’s a valid possibility.”

Marco nods slowly.

“Wow.”

“Stop saying ‘wow’! It’s making me nervous, Marco.”

“Wo- I mean, oh god. It’s just all so – _wow_. Marriage!” Marco stumbles over the words, because he’s more than a bit freaked out right now and his face feels like it’s burning.

Auba is just a room away, which now means that Marco’s _husband_ is just a room away. How surreal is that? Dali can take notes, although Marco isn’t so sure that he’d take a sudden spouse over melting clocks, even if that spouse is Auba.

Mats manages to keep silent for a single minute of decency, while Marco stares alternatingly into the distance and at his ring.

“How do you feel?” Mats interrupts then though, “This wasn’t planned or something, right?”

Marco laughs, but the laughter soon turns into an anxious whimper.

“Do you think Auba knows?” he asks.

“How would he? I think if he knew he’d have probably let you know.”

Marco grimaces and nods.

“ _You_ should probably let him know though,” Mats nudges Marco gently.

“I don’t even know whether it’s true! Just because it fits some, uh, all given, uhm, observations or some shit, doesn’t mean it’s really true! It’s like—like— like the theory of evolution!”

“The theory of evolution?”

“Yeah!”

“I think evolution is proven as much as it ever can be,” Mats remarks and earns a glare from Marco for that. “Whatever that means for your situation.”

Sure, the rings are no proof that Auba and Marco got married, but it’s hard to find another explanation. ‘Bro rings’ suddenly doesn’t sound so legit anymore, not with this expensive diamond.

The point is, Marco wants proof before he can decide to do anything about his marital status, and after some thinking, Mats comes up with the obvious idea.

“You must have signed something, you have to have a copy of your wedding papers! I doubt that even drunk you would just throw them into the next bin,” Mats says, “especially considering you spent so much thought on your rings.”

“Is that supposed to be some kind of dig?” Marco narrows his eyes.

“What? Why, no! They’re very pretty rings.”

Marco is going to let that one slide, but only because Mats is helping him and actually makes it possible for them to leave the media day half an hour early, so they can head to Marco’s house and search for the papers.

“Any idea where you might have put it?”

Marco thinks about it for a second and considers the drawers full of unorganised brochures, letters, and bills that he usually just stuffs in there.

“Not really?”

Mats rolls his eyes.

“Well, where did you put your clothes and your suitcase after you came back to Germany?”

Marco thinks again, but this time he’s even successful at his cognitive efforts (shut up, thank you).

“I don’t know, we had a bunch of shit lying around in our room. I packed it all so I guess I just have to go through the lot of it.”

“Didn’t you unpack already?” Mats asks.

“Mats, you’re talking to _me._ I put that suitcase down after the holidays and never touched it again.”

“Right.”

So Marco goes and gets the bag from where he pushed it under his bed and forgot about it. It looks dusty already, which is impressive, considering that it hasn’t been there too long yet.

Before Mats can object, Marco turns the suitcase upside down over his kitchen table and dumps all its contents on it. It’s a pile of not extremely fresh clothes, crinkled dollar bills, and a whole bunch of paper.

“I guess we can just ignore your dirty underwear,” Mats says and nudges some old socks away with a grossed out expression on his face. “Let’s check these sheets.”

They turn out to be a thousand receipts from just as many different burger places and it’s a pain in the ass to sort through them, so Marco is starting to get all jittery when it takes long.

After a while, Mats makes a shocked noise and holds a paper closer to his eyes.

“Marco, is this – oh god. Is this a list of… baby names?”

Marco chokes on his own spit, but manages to snatch the paper from Mats’ hand. He throws a glance across it and takes a breath. For a split second, he almost thought that Mats found some fucked-up clue about the fifteen children Auba and Marco might have also accidentally acquired in their drunken bliss.

“Mats! You nearly gave me a heart attack!” Marco says and presses his hand to his chest in only a _slight_ exaggeration of overwhelming relief. “That’s not a list of baby names, you ass-hat! How’d you even think that?”

“I don’t know, man, it’s a list of names. What is it then?”

“One of the names on here is literally _Sea Destroyer 28_!” Marco remarks, frowning.

“So?”   

Mats shrugs, and Marco facepalms. He really doesn’t want to have the image of being the kind of guy who’d name his kid something like _Wavetron 5000._

“No, Jesus, we bought a yacht,” Marco explains to Mats who seems to think that this is about equally as weird, “and those are names we considered.” Marco reads through all of them again, the further down the list, the more illegible. “Mats, did you honestly think we thought _Sea Destroyer_ was a good baby name?!”

“You named your Roomba vaccuum _Sweeper Keeper_ , so. Never mind. No baby names then.”

Mats pulls a sad face, as if he had actually been looking forward to be the honorary uncle to a bunch of adopted kids with names like _Football Dream Boat_ (so what, creativity might not be highly developed during inebriated nights in Vegas).

“Keep looking for the wedding thing,” Marco instructs to take Mats’ mind off non-existent nephews.

“The _certificate_ , dude. It’s called a wedding certificate.”

“Right, whatever, the thing!”

Marco’s the lucky one who finds it in the end. It’s got all the fancy features Marco loves, like heavy paper, golden lettering and elaborate drawings of wedding bells.

The text is pretty simple and only goes something like _on this date blah blah blah marriage blah blah blah congratulations._

Then, underneath, there are two lines and two scrawly signatures. At this point it’s no surprise anymore that they belong to Marco and Auba respectively.

“So. It’s true,” Marco just says, and it all falls down on him like cartoon piano.

He still can’t remember a single second of that night, but his brain jumps in and fabricates its own imagination of the wedding. And, fuck, Marco can _see_ it. He can see Auba rocking some overly expensive suit, and he can see himself tearing up, and he can see it being one hell of a party.

Marco brushes his hands across the lettering on the certificate until his finger lands on one specific word.

“I took Auba’s name?” Marco asks, but the answer is there in black and white.

Marco’s mind is beyond tangled right now. He silently tests how his new name would sound, and it definitely feels strange to curl one’s tongue around the new vowels.

_Marco Aubameyang, Marco Aubameyang, Marco Aubameyang, Marco Aubameyang._

He still doubts that a crumpled piece of paper should have any legal power, but what if? Does he have to change his name on all documents? Good lord, on his jersey? He definitely knows of some women who did that. Can two people have the same name on one team?

What if Auba doesn’t want to be married? What if they have to get a divorce? Does Marco want to be married? Does Marco want a divorce? Are they friends, bros, more?

Marco should be freaking out right now. But, despite all those questions, he isn’t.

Ultimately, he could have chosen someone way worse to marry. Marco’s drunk self might not be so stupid after all. And not to forget, Auba’s drunk self agreed to the wedding so they’re pretty much on the same page here, and Marco can only answer his questions together with Auba.

The person he keeps coming back to.

“Are you okay?” Mats asks carefully, putting his hand on Marco’s shoulder. Marco realises that Mats hasn’t commented for quite some time and mentally rewards him for his self-restraint.

“Actually... yeah.  I’m fine. Yeah, thank you.”

Then, Marco grabs the certificate and his jacket, leaving Mats sitting in the kitchen without an explanation.

“Hey, where are you going?” Mats calls after him.

“There’s someone I have to talk to!” Marco answers and is out of the door.

\--

Marco rings Auba’s door bell four times short and two times long. It’s their secret code, but Auba still takes the time to use the intercom to say, “Bro, Broski, Broseph, that you?”

“Who else, bro?” Marco answers and walks into the house when Auba opens the door for him.

Marco kicks his shoes off, and dumps himself on the couch as if it was own, which, going from the time he’s spent on it, it totally is already.

Auba asks whether he wants anything to drink, and Marco nods, if only to win time.

When Auba hands him the glass of water, their fingers touch, and the tingle feeling is pretty much the last thing Marco wants to think about right now.

“You left early after the photo session. I still wanted your definite opinion on the masks for next season. Anything wrong or something?” Auba asks with genuine concern. It’s true, Marco usually wouldn’t have left without giving Auba their elaborate goodbye handshake.

“I had to take care of something,” Marco replies. Not a lie.

Auba can read between the lines that it’s something that Marco wants to answer in his own time, so he just sits next to Marco with an expectant expression on his face.

Marco nibbles on his glass of water for what feels like an eternity, but at some point he can’t hold himself back any longer.

“Auba, how would... how would you tell someone that you’ve gotten married?” he asks. Smooth.

Auba raises his eyebrows and gives Marco a once-over as if he expects that his appearance had somehow changed through marriage.

“I don’t know, I’d just... tell them? You know, say it? With words?” Auba replies slowly, a figurative question mark above his head.

As often, Marco decides to just, like, ram his head right into the conversational wall.

“So! haha! Funny story! We got married.” Marco says with a forced, crooked smile on his face. Just for emphasis, he also does jazz hands.

Auba blinks in confusion.

“What? You and who?”

“Me and,” Marco hesitates. “And you.”

A number of emotions crosses Auba’s face – amusement, realisation, shock. Auba’s jaw drops which is something Marco thought only happened in books and movies.

While Auba’s eyes never leave Marco’s face, Auba’s hand wanders into his pocket and pulls out the diamond ring. Marco knows now that Auba must have the right idea about the whole event, but he still hasn’t said a word.

In reply, Marco raises his hand and shows Auba his own ring again.

“Yeah, apparently these are not bro rings,” Marco starts, “or maybe they are, but they’re also wedding rings, kinda. I mean the engraving with the heart should have been a clue, but I never thought we would like cross that line although it’s not all bad! Look, here’s the wedding certificate and it’s actually pretty cool with the gold?”

Marco hands Auba the piece of paper that is very crumpled and torn at this point, and Auba takes it, but only looks at it somewhat glassy-eyed.

“And I was thinking, because you don’t marry your best friend every day,” Marco continues stammering, “does it mean anything? And, like, I think I like you, bro and all, the lines get blurred there, point is I like your face and I’d like touching your face. Is that weird? Drunk me knew apparently. Like, what’s that saying like drunk people and children tell the truth? Or was it drunk people and orphans? But why would it be orphans, that makes no—“

“Shut up for a second,” Auba interrupts him and grabs Marco’s hand, squeezing it hard as if to ground himself.

Marco can keep silent for maybe five seconds.

“Are you freaking out?”

“No, I’m not freaking out.” Auba replies reassuringly. “I just need to put all that in shit in order inside of my head, because a couple things about that night start making sense now.”

Marco nods and bites his lip. He can totally give Auba time, he’d give Auba all the time in the world if he asked him to.

Auba strokes Marco’s hand during the silence, which is really, really, really nice.

“Marco?” Auba asks, just when Marco had started debating whether quickly asking for more water would be rude.

“Uh, yes?”

“I think... it’s all good. Don’t you think, bro?”

“Us being married, sort of?”

“Yeah,” Auba says, a small smile forming on his face, “and everything else.”

Marco is unbelievably relieved because what if Auba had decided to get a divorce and move to, like, Texas or Gelsenkirchen? The entire team would probably have never talked to Marco again. There’s still one other tiny thing though.

“Before you say anything else, there’s another thing that you should probably know. It’s the tattoo you asked me about. I also got it that night apparently.”

“Is it... what I think it could be?” Auba asks slowly, but he doesn’t seem weirded out by it all, more like he’s as overwhelmed as if he just scored a winning goal.

Marco grimaces, shrugs and pulls his shirt over his head.

“Look for yourself, dude.”

Marco has to turn away from Auba so he can’t see the expression of Auba’s face, but the amused, somewhat flattered noise he makes probably says it all.

Auba touches the tattoo only once and very quickly (it still gives Marco goosebumps), then he tugs at Marco’s arm to make him turn back around.

“Actually, it’s better than I imagined a drunk tattoo to look like. We need to find out what that tattoo artist’s name is,” Auba says and laughs.

Marco lets out a breath he hadn’t realised he has been holding.

“You don’t mind? I could get it removed?”

“Removed?” Auba snorts. “Are you kidding me? It’s awesome, of course I don’t mind. I mean, obviously I didn’t mind back in America.”

“And... you didn’t mind getting married either.”

“What a surprise, you idiot. Turns out I actually like you.”

“You do?” Marco asks with a surprisingly steady voice.

“I do.”

“Well, I do, too. So.”

This time Marco takes Auba’s hand and squeezes. The ring digs into his skin, which is a bit painful but also fucking exhilarating.

“I guess some people date and _then_ get married, but eh. Seems pretty boring to me. So if you’re okay with trying it this way...?” Auba trails off and shrugs, but if Marco knows one thing, it’s what Auba means.

“More than okay, bro,” Marco replies sincerely, and Auba smiles widely, then he leans forward to softly peck Marco on the lips.

“You can put your shirt back on, by the way.”

“Oh, should I?” Marco leers and makes a show out of exaggeratedly flexing in front of Auba.

Auba just sticks out his tongue, like he always does when Marco says something ridiculous.

They can make this work. Bro rings or not.

(Though that’s definitely a yes for bro rings from Marco, but never mind.)

\--

Married life is treating them very well, but the thing is, nothing much even changes between them.

Sure, they sometimes steal kisses in the tunnel before the match now, and Marco frames the crumpled wedding certificate and hangs it up in his living room (he’s pretty sure the other players think it’s a joke and it doesn’t hold any legal power in Germany anyway). Auba uses more heart emojis and starts more tickle attacks during training.

But they can’t wear the rings during sports anyway so that part doesn’t change, and Marco has to keep the tattoo covered up as well. They’re still best bros and they hang out just like they used to, which, granted, was and is a lot. Marco still mocks Auba for his backpack, and  Auba tells him he’s just insulting it because he secretly wants one too. Which is totally, definitely a lie, thank you.

Most importantly, they still get kebab together, just like they do today, after peeling their asses from Auba’s couch after a make-out session.

The shop is a pretty ratty one, but it’s mostly empty, which means no one’s there to cause a scene, which means it’s perfect for Marco and Auba.

They pay 306€ for their kebab – the food actually only costs 6€, but Auba gives the guy behind the counter another 300€ for the, quote, experience, unquote.

They eat their food in comfortable silence, because there’s not a lot that should get in between two bites of kebab, not even Jesus.

The weird thing happens when Marco watches the neon light ghost over Auba’s face and he gets an idea. Now, Marco knows his track record of ideas and how far they are widely considered bad ideas (or, HORRIBLE IDEA!!!! by Robert) but, what the heck, right?

Marco stares into his kebab, but the remoulade-slathered onions offer as much information as the intestines of birds did for the ancient Romans. He swallows drily.

“Auba?”

Auba – still chewing – draws his gaze away from the TV that senselessly shows a music video channel on silent and turns towards Marco.

The shadows on his face change with it and a glow is thrown over Auba’s temples.

The star that Auba had shaved into his hair just before their trip to the US has almost grown out by now.

Marco realises that it’s been longer since that night than it had seemed to him. He forces himself to look into Auba’s eyes and takes a deep breath.

“Marry me?”

Auba stops chewing.

Nothing much else happens though.

The world doesn’t stop turning, and the TV is still showing women clad in candy-coloured skirts whirling around to sounds that are inaudible in the shop. The guy behind the counter is still chopping salad and doesn’t take note of Auba and Marco.

Auba swallows and slowly wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Marco patiently waits, and he has no problem doing so, because somehow he feels like they’ve got all the time in the world to figure this one out.

Inside his jacket pocket, the fingers of Marco’s left hand close around his ring.

“We’re already married,” Auba answers softly, and it sounds vaguely like a question.

“Not that Las Vegas shit. I mean, marry for real.”

“That’s... not possible. Here, for us.”

“Screw that, you know exactly what I mean,” Marco says and takes Auba’s hand across the kebab sauce-stained table cloth. “Marry me.”

Auba’s eyes wander across Marco’s face as if he’s trying to read something on it. Marco knows that there are a thousand reasonable things to say against this proposal, time and manner just being two of them.

Marco knows.

And Marco knows Auba.

Auba licks his lips and nods.

“Okay,” Auba says, “let’s get married.”

Marco beams and grips Auba’s hand tighter.

“Yeah. Let’s get married.”

Leaning across the table to kiss Auba proves to be a challenge for Marco, especially with the glasses and bottles between them, but Marco is nothing if not up for a challenge.

Auba laughs into the kiss, which makes the whole thing a little messy, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

“You got the ring?” Marco asks and fumbles his own out of his jacket pocket. When he looks up, Auba is already holding his ring on the palm of his hand. The diamond shines in the neon light of the kebab shop.

“Let’s swap?” Auba suggests, and they slide their rings on each other’s fingers.

They lean across for another kiss, then Marco sits back down, and Auba returns to his plate.

“That was a pretty shitty proposal,” Auba says, happily munching away on his food.

“Love you, too, bro,” Marco replies, thumbing his new-slash-old-slash-whatever ring. “That was also a pretty shitty acceptance of my proposal from you. You never even said yes.”

“Well. Yes. And, no.”

Marco frowns. “What d’you mean? No what?”

“No, we’re not marrying in our kits. I draw the line there,” Auba replies with a smug grin.

Marco sticks his tongue out. He’s still got plenty of time to convince Auba of his idea of marrying in the stadium. It would fucking rock, and if there’s one thing Marco and Auba are, it’s fucking _rockstars_.

**Author's Note:**

> This might seem long, so scroll past it if you want to, but know that this is about you, too! (Yes, YOU!)
> 
> It's basically been a year since I signed up here on AO3 after a glorious World Cup and I simply want to say thanks.  
> I know this sounds like the beginning of the sort of facebook post where your fave player announces he's leaving his childhood club to join Alaska Nowheresville FC as a ball boy -- but I promise, I'm staying where I am! Wait, this also sounds like the sort of thing players say just before they transfer. Never mind. Don't trust them, but trust me.  
> Anyway, I'm glad I started following football and I'm glad that I decided to upload my stories here. It's been a great year during which I even somehow managed to graduate; I made many friends and I'm so happy about every single kudo/comment/word(/look?) you sent my way.
> 
> I'm still on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/anexactscience)/[here](https://twitter.com/kissthecrest) and I love talking to people and getting prompts there and so on. My internet presence is scattered, so if you want to find me on tumblr/8tracks/mail/skype, just tell me!
> 
> Thanks for everything and keep rocking on.


End file.
